Go to London, and you’ll see Italian and Polish tourists losing their minds over the gray squirrels in Hyde Park. Some will express bafflement over these frantic furry creatures. Others will “ooh” and “ahh” and snap pictures. You’re bound to see a woman scream and jump behind her husband as a squirrel dashes across the footpath.

For continental Europeans, gray squirrels, the most quotidian of mammals, are exotic, confusing, and even scary.